


the road to ruin (starting at the end)

by Boxedblondes (orphan_account)



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Swap, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Copious use of commas and ellipses, Eventual Fluff, F/F, Femslash, Genderbending, Heartbreak, Kissing, Misunderstandings, Non-Linear Narrative, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-02 08:01:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16301192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Boxedblondes
Summary: The story of Pete and Pat from beginning to end, though not necessarily in that order.





	1. before it has begun (we've already won)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Girl Out Boy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11935626) by [scarredsodeep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarredsodeep/pseuds/scarredsodeep). 



> Inspired by my own personal experiences and by scarredsodeep's Girl Out Boy series (though this doesn't fall in the same universe), I present to you a love story. And also a story of heartbreak and pain and learning how to grow up and love yourself. 
> 
> This is a non-linear story, so each chapter will not chronologically flow into the next, though all the chapters are connected. Each chapter is loosely based on a different song from _Save Rock and Roll_.
> 
> Will be updated probably sporadically (sorry).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In poison places, we are anti venom  
>  We're the beginning of the end_

It’s the middle of the night somewhere in Ohio and everything is incredibly surreal right now.

They’re at a Target for some reason. Probably because it was the only thing still open at 9 at night in this tiny strip mall of the side of the highway. And like, who can refuse a Target trip? Also Andy said she needed coffee or something or she would, quote, “crash this van into a guardrail.” Pete might occasionally have a death wish, but head trauma and asphyxiation-by-smoke-inhalation was not exactly the way she wanted to go.

So now Pete’s standing in the middle of the toy aisle. The fluorescents are making her dissociate a little, like maybe they did crash and die on I-71 and now she’s in purgatory or something. She was supposed to be looking for new socks because all of hers have holes at this point in the tour and that is _not_ conducive to stomping around on a stage all night, but she walked through the clothing section no less than three times without finding the socks and decided to go find the others and make them help her. 

And then she heard some lady talking to a little kid by the shoes and something about listening to their conversation made her remember that she has a mom, too, but _her_ mom’s two states away and Pete’s actually (somehow) an adult now and doesn’t even live with her parents anymore. And then her eyes started welling up and Pete so did not want to be crying in a Target right now, so she speed-walked around the perimeter of the store trying to find a bathroom she could cry in, but then she got kind of tired on the way and had to stop walking for a minute. And now she’s here just standing in front of the Barbies, of all things.

At least she doesn’t feel like crying anymore.

Like something out of a dream, she blinks and all of a sudden Pat’s there. Well not there, there. She’s across the aisle, walking down that main strip that separates all the little aisles full of toys and books and shit. Pat’s got her glasses on and a so-dark-red-it’s-almost-black beanie on and she’s carrying two large boxes of maxi pads.

She looks completely normal, but also like the most objectively fucking beautiful person Pete’s ever seen. 

Because, see, Pete realized a few days ago she’s kind of in love with Pat, like In Love, capital letters and tiny hearts included. Pat didn’t even do anything extraordinarily special. They were all just in the van and it was kinda stuffy in there because the Midwest had had a sudden cold snap and now they had to have the heat running all the time. Well, they kind of always had to have the heat running so the van would actually, like, work. But now if they didn’t have the heat on they’d probably die of frostbite or something in their sleep.

So. They were all in the van, dozing a little. Joe was driving, tangly brown hair tied up in a weird little ponytail-bun hybrid thing at the back of her head, chomping gum like her life depended on it. And Andy was in the front with her, talking about some neo-anarchist book she’d just read. And Pat was listening to music, headphones tucked into her ear canals like they lived there. And Pete was watching her, of course. Pete was always watching somebody, though it was mostly Pat. Pete was feeling pretty normal at the moment, brain lodged squarely between her two usual extremes for once.

Pat had been mouthing the words to whatever she was listening to, those signature pink lips forming lyrics and drumbeats alike. She was always like this, always so firmly attached to music, always so _into_ it. This kind of scene usually bred a cozy, almost domestic feeling in Pete’s chest. But today something felt different.

Today she watched Pat slip into her own little world, eyes closed and head tilted back on the seat. Today she watched Pat reach up to tuck a little chunk of strawberry-blonde hair back into her beanie. And today she felt a different kind of fire start to kindle behind her sternum, something sharper and sweeter all the same, something maybe a little bit dangerous even.

She wanted to kiss Pat.

Ever since then, Pete’s been doing some very extensive soul-searching, if you could call it that. Mostly she’s just been pretending to nap in the back of the van and daydreaming about Pat’s skin or lips or something less familiar, and then immediately feeling guilty for thinking about her best friend in that way.

It’s not like Pete’s a stranger to being in love. Or lust, even. It’s just that usually she doesn’t fall in love with her friends. Usually she doesn’t fall in love at all – or have friends. Pete likes to experience the entire arc of a relationship in one night or, on occasion, a few days. She likes to kiss and fuck and laugh with complete strangers and then forget about them the next day. She likes to keep her personal and professional lives separate. It’s pretty much the only line she’s never crossed.

But now she’s at this horrible crossroads. Does she say something and risk Pat freaking out on her, getting angry? Or does she stay silent and let these feelings fester and curdle inside her, with Pat never the wiser? For a lyricist, Pete’s not very good with words when it comes to talking about feelings.

Oh, and now she’s in this liminal Target with Pat about to walk right past her, inexplicably still standing in the toy aisle. Maybe she should do something about that.

“Pat!” she calls. “Patty! Wait up!”

Pat turns around, blinking slowly. They’re all maybe a little overtired.

“What are you doing by the dolls?” Pat asks.

It’s a valid question. “Good question,” says Pete. “I need some sleep.”

“God, me too.”

Pat rubs at her eyes with one hand, balancing the boxes of pads in the crook of her other elbow. She looks so young like this. So beautiful. 

Fuck.

“Where are the others?” Pete asks.

“No idea,” says Pat. “You wanna come find them?”

Pete nods, then kind of trips her way over to Pat’s side. She grabs for one of the boxes of pads, the one that’s threatening to tumble out of Pat’s grasp.

“Do you think – when you die, do you think you end up in one of these places?” she asks.

“A Target?” Pat asks, looking vaguely confused.

“No,” Pete tries to explain. She waves her free arm around. “Just one of these big, bright, empty places. Purgatory.”

“I don’t know,” says Pat. “I’m too tired to think about death and shit right now.”

Pete hopes Pat never dies. She hopes if she does, she at least gets to go to a Super Target.

Apparently she says this out loud because Pat snorts and then goes, “Shut up, Pete.” Then they’re both laughing, giggling really, that kind of helpless, gaspy laughter that only happens when you’re low on sleep and high on life.

Pete scoops up Pat’s hand with her own. They walk towards the checkout like that, stifling laughter and swinging their joined hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fall is a very important season for me. This time five years ago, I was falling in love for the first time with a girl who was my best friend almost literally since birth. She introduced me to Fall Out Boy and Save Rock and Roll became my nonstop playlist for the next, well… forever, basically.
> 
> This time three years ago, my heart was being broken for the first time for that same girl. I listened to SRAR again (like I ever stopped) and for the first time, I really understood Miss Missing You. AB/AP became a holy grail of breakup anthems for me.
> 
> This year, I’m falling in love with myself for the first time, truly. I’m (obviously) still listening to FOB, but I hear those same care-worn songs with different ears every year, every season, every time. I’m growing into a more creative, bold, real version of myself and it feels wonderful. I’m still trying to look for love, but I’m not letting that search overwhelm me, nor am I letting my singledom make me feel “less.” Not anymore.
> 
> I am alive and breathing and happy thanks to this band. Here is my love letter back.
> 
> (Unconventional as it may be.)


	2. doesn't it feel like our time is running out? (hey, youngblood)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You are a brick tied to me that’s dragging me down  
>  Strike a match and I’ll burn you to the ground  
> We are the jack-o-lanterns in July  
> Setting fire to the sky  
> Here, here comes this rising tide so come on_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is rough. I'm sorry.

In the end, to everyone’s surprise, it’s Pat who spills the beans about the whole thing. 

She and Pete have been texting each other all night. Pete’s in LA to meet another one of the baby bands she wants to sign. Pat’s in her little apartment in Chicago, trying to fight her proverbial writer’s block and put some chords together in an order that sounds halfway decent.

Pat’s been drinking, just a little bit. Joe brought her a bottle of wine last time she stopped by and Pat needs to text her and find out where she got it because Pat didn’t even think she liked red wine up until this exact moment. She’s a little tipsy and a little horny and her phone keyboard keeps blurring in and out of something resembling vision.

The thing is, Pete’s been so romantic lately. She gets that way when they’re apart, usually, but she’s ratcheted it up another level tonight. They started off texting each other about boring, menial, day-to-day stuff – movies Pete wants Pat to see, music blogs Pat wants Pete to read, funny, low-quality cat pictures Pete saves to her phone for some reason – and then moved on to much deeper stuff. Pete’s been texting Pat little snippets of lyrics for the past hour. They’re good, different somehow from anything she’s written before. More evocative maybe, like she’s exposing the last piece of her soul she hasn’t given the world yet.

If you asked her about it later, Pat would blame that combination – the alcohol and Pete’s words. But really, she can’t blame anything or anyone but herself. It’s her tipsy little fingers that start typing out a message on the keyboard, her decision to push send. 

It’s her drunken mistake to open the wrong app in the first place. Her mistake to not even notice.

Pat stays awake for twenty minutes after that. She was aiming for half an hour, but she’s three drinks too late for that and her house is so warm and the blanket across her lap is just the right kind of heavy. She wonders, fuzzily, why Pete isn’t texting her back. Maybe she fell asleep too.

All hell breaks loose in the morning. Eventually.

That’s how these kind of things go, she’s realized. Everything seems normal at first, then it all goes to shit.

Pat wakes up only a little hungover, which feels like nothing short of a miracle judging by the two empty wine bottles she picks up off of the coffee table. She eats some granola for breakfast, even though it tastes like tree bark, because she’s on a health kick, as she’s been telling people – in reality, she’s been feeling a little self-conscious about her body lately.

It’s not until Pat digs her phone out from the couch cushions that her day really starts to go downhill. Pete likes to text her – this is a fact. What Pete does not like to do is call twelve times and leave three voicemails in the span of an hour and a half.

Pat’s stomach is already dropping to somewhere in the vicinity of her knees. Once it hits her ankles, it’ll really be time to worry. For now, she settles for dialing Pete’s number, foregoing the voicemails for now.

“Pat?” says Pete on the second ring.

“Hey, babe,” says Pat. “I saw you called. What’s up?”

“What’s – ?” Pete sounds like the dictionary definition of harried. “Did you not listen to my voicemail?”

“Uh. No.”

Pete sighs. “Listen, I’m giving you the benefit of a doubt here and assuming you didn’t mean to post that. But also, I’ve got to ask. Pat. What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I have… absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” says Pat.

“Check Twitter. You uh, said some things.”

Pat’s already pulling her laptop towards her, balancing it on the very ends of her knees. She places the phone on her shoulder, holds it in place with her cheek. She pulls up Twitter and starts to log on.

“Pat?” 

“I’m getting there, hold on.” And as she says it, the screen loads. Pat navigates to her profile and –

Oh. Oh no.

“Oh no,” she says, voice coming out a hoarse whisper.

“Yeah,” says Pete over the phone.

“I didn’t,” Pat starts. “I would never.”

“I know that, okay. I _know_. But now it’s… it’s out there and my phone is _blowing the fuck up_ and I don’t know what to do.”

Pat’s still staring at her screen, at the tweet that she – apparently – wrote last night.

_you were my first and my last and my best. i think youre the love of my life petey_

Frankly, Pat’s shocked that she wrote that whole thing out with that much alcohol running through her veins and didn’t make any spelling errors. She even used punctuation!

“Pat,” Pete says again. She’s starting to sound frustrated.

“I know, I know,” says Pat. “It’s not great but it’s not…”

“Not what?”

“I just think, you know, I think it could have been much worse.”

Pete’s voice is steely when she responds. “Much worse? Much _worse_? I don’t think you understand how this looks.”

And now Pat’s starting to get defensive, maybe even a little mad. “It’s not a big deal,” she says. “We’ve been together a little while now, it was gonna go public sooner or later. I don’t know why you’re so up in arms about this.”

“My mom follows my Twitter,” says Pete.

“So?”

“So. She called me this morning, crying. Asking me if this means I’m gay now, if she’s ever going to have grandchildren, why I never told her, how I think I’m going to be a successful musician now if everyone thinks I’m a lesbian.”

Pete stops to breathe for a minute, or maybe to let Pat respond. She’s quiet in the way she usually is before she starts to cry.

“Pete…” Pat starts.

“So,” says Pete. “I think I’m going to need some time.”

Pat abruptly breaks out into a cold sweat. It feels like tapping the brake when you meant to step on the gas, like her body was going and going and now she’s slammed into a concrete wall. Still, she has to ask. She has to force herself to ask.

“Time for what, Pete.” It’s not a question.

“Time by myself, like, to think about everything. To figure out what I want and all that.”

“You don’t want to be with me anymore.” She has to say it like that, gentle, euphemistic. She can’t say the other words, words like _split_ and _breakup_ and _it’s over_.

“Maybe someday,” says Pete. “Maybe we can work it out. But not right now.”

“Okay,” says Pat. “If that’s what you want.”

“Thanks for understanding,” says Pete. It’s flat, unemotional. It’s not like her. It’s not like the way they talk.

“No problem,” says Pat.

She hangs up.

The silent tears that were already working their way down her face, carving paths like acid rain, pick up in speed and volume. Pat cries. She sobs and sobs and it hurts, right down to the core of her. There’s so much pain – for herself, for Pete, for the two of them and their past and their broken present and their future that will never be. 

Because that conversation she just had – that wasn’t a “see you later,” it was a goodbye.

It’s a long time before Pat picks herself back up from the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In real life, I asked her to be my girlfriend over text. The rest of it went down pretty much the same way.
> 
> Be accepting of your kids, people.


	3. old aches, old friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I will drift to you if you make yourself shake fast enough  
>  My old aches become new again  
> My old friends become exes again_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized people might not know which chapter is inspired by which song (each chapter title is a lyric, if you want a hint). The first two chapters are loosely based around Young Volcanoes and The Phoenix. This one is Where Did the Party Go.

They’re at a party tonight, which is only notable because Pat is very much not a party kind of person. But whatever, they just released _Folie_ and it’s kind of expected that they’re going to celebrate that by inviting a shit ton of people over to Pete’s townhouse and just generally acting like the rockstars they apparently are now.

But Pat is still Pat, so she’s leaning up against a counter in the kitchen, sipping something from a red plastic cup that tastes kind of like gasoline. Or, what she imagines gasoline would taste like. Whatever.

The lights in here are just this side of too bright, almost painfully fluorescent in comparison to the dimness of the rest of the house. Pat feels like something on display, like someone could see right through her down to her bones if they looked close enough. She’s just buzzed enough to feel comfortable being a wallflower, but just sober enough to know she should actually be making some kind of effort. To, like, network or something.

Pete’s out in the living room, on her weirdly squishy couch with like six other people. More specifically, she’s sitting in some dude’s lap – this, like, skinny white guy with the douchiest of haircuts and Docs that are way to clean to be anything but brand new – and they’re kind of lazily making out in between laughing and talking with the other people on the couch. Pat knows it should feel weird to be watching her ex kiss someone else, almost too voyeuristic to be socially appropriate, but she kind of doesn’t give a fuck.

Because. Pete’s been doing this for months now, getting cozy with people when she knows Pat’s watching, or _could_ be watching. It’s like she’s got something to prove, a performance. Pete didn’t use to feel like she had to perform around Pat. That was basically the _only_ time she wasn’t performing, when she was hanging with Pat or the other girls. But now it’s this whole _thing_. They’re politely pretending it’s _not_ a thing, but they’re both definitely trying too hard for it to not be.

So anyway, Pat’s just standing in Pete’s kitchen and watching her kiss this guy and wondering how soon until she can leave without it seeming rude. 

See, Pat’s been trying very extremely hard to keep her emotions in check lately. She and Pete have been communicating almost exclusively in screaming matches for the past few months, mostly under the guise of “creative differences” in regards to the album, and her vocal cords are getting a little tired. Pat thinks the stages of grief might be kind of bullshit because she’s been stuck on anger for a while now. Pete, for her part, seems to be happily entering acceptance right about now.

Fuck, she misses her.

Right on cue, Joe saunters into the kitchen, looking like a punk rock dream. She’s been letting her hair grow into a full Jew fro and Pete finally talked her into actually putting some product in it, so it’s looking magnificent tonight. Pat thinks Joe is one of those people who can pull off just about anything without looking dumb or like she’s trying too hard. For her part, Pat got self-conscious just putting pins on her backpack in high school. 

“Hey, hey,” says Joe. “Feeling a little antisocial?”

“Just tired,” says Pat.

Joe plucks Pat’s cup – now empty – out of her hand and tosses it towards the trash can with the easy confidence only she can have. It curves in a perfect arc and lands with a little thunk in the bin. Pat holds her hand up for a reluctant high-five. 

“So, you wanna go sit outside for a bit?” Joe asks. Her eyes are on Pete in the other room, eyes scrunched closed and laughing into the mouth of her new friend.

“Yeah,” says Pat.

It’s a cold night, refreshing after the close humidity of the house party. Pat’s arms, bare below the cut of her T-shirt sleeve, start to prickle with goosebumps. In a moment, she’ll wish she’d brought her jacket out.

Joe runs her fingers along the edge of frost that’s started to form on Pete’s front steps. She was smart enough to wear her coat outside.

“So,” she says. 

“Yeah,” says Pat.

They talk like this sometimes. Not in words, exactly, not in body language like she and Pete do, just in silence. In the air between them, in the absence of talking. It’s one of the things Pat likes so much about Joe. She doesn’t ask for anything from anyone and she doesn’t expect things. She’s comfortable in her skin in a way Pat’s never been. She’s comfortable with just being.

“How do you do it?” says Pat. “How do you just – ” she waves her arms around a little for emphasis, “ – be.”

Joe shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “I just am.”

“I sometimes feel like I’m always uncomfortable. Like, anywhere I go, I just don’t belong.”

“You belong,” says Joe. She dances her fingers, still skating over the ice on the concrete, over to Pat and taps cold-wet fingers on the back of her hand. “You belong.” 

Pat’s really fucking stupid sometimes. And awkward. That’s the only explanation she has for curling a freezing hand around the back of Joe’s neck and leaning in to kiss her on the lips, just long enough to linger.

Joe doesn’t reciprocate, but she doesn’t push her away either. When Pat’s done, she just blinks at her a little and raises her eyebrows.

“Now, see,” she says. “That’s what we’re not going to do.”

“Sorry,” says Pat. She can feel her cheeks starting to pink up, heat curling lazily under her skin. “I didn’t mean to – ”

“It’s okay,” says Joe. “I know you’re hurting. But trying to break yourself more isn’t going to help.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey,” Joe bumps her shoulder with her own. “Don’t be embarrassed. You’re a confident, sexy beast. You just need to take that energy somewhere else.”

Right. Like Pat doesn’t feel like digging a deep hole under a nice rock and living there for the rest of her life.

“Back inside?” asks Joe. Because she’s basically a mind reader when it comes to Pat. “You’re gonna freeze to death in about five minutes.”

“Okay,” says Pat.

Joe, because she’s a sweetheart who likes to make Pat cry with tears of “what did I ever do to deserve you” sometimes, shrugs off her coat, warm with body heat, and helps Pat tuck her arms into the sleeves.

Being inside again feels like walking into an alien world. Pat’s ears are so cold they don’t feel like a part of her body when she reaches up to rub some heat back into them. The quiet winter sounds outside seem almost deafening compared to the lull that’s settled over the house in their absence. Somewhere there’s music playing, something sad and indie, but it’s so faint Pat can barely hear it.

It’s the point in the evening when everyone is either stoned or high, falling in love or falling asleep. This is the only part of parties that she likes, this… softness. It’s cozy, almost. If she could forget she’s in Pete’s house, it’d be almost perfect. At least Pete only moved in a few months ago and has been too busy with the album to really paint her presence on the walls and floors of this house. She and Pat don’t have any memories here.

Pete – speak of the devil – is still lounging on the couch, head tipped back over one of the arms, smoking something that could be a cigarette but is probably weed. She’s alone now.

“Where’d your friend go?” asks Joe.

“More like where did the whole fucking party go,” says Pete. Definitely weed then, if she’s feeling this morose. “Home with someone else.”

“You want help cleaning up?”

“Hmm. Nah, I’ll do it in the morning.”

“Sounds about right.” Joe heads to the kitchen and starts scooping crumpled napkins and plastic cups into the trash. “Good turnout, I think.”

“They just want to feel special when _Folie_ hits the charts,” says Pete.

Joe snorts. “Could you _be_ any more ornery?”

“This is just me, baby,” says Pete, flinging her arms wide.

Pat stays quiet. She opens the dishwasher and starts to load it with the dirty dishes from the sink. Joe and Pete’s conversation is like white noise in the background. She and Pete first kissed at a party – well, after-party. This far on, the memory feels surreal. At the time it probably felt just as surreal, if she’s being honest. It’s not something she wants to think about, but the memory swims up unbidden and she’s beholden to it as she finishes clearing out the sink.

 _You’re a confident, sexy beast_ , Joe had said. She feels more like a sad little shrimp or something. But Joe was probably right about the other thing – she needs to stop trying to hurt herself to make herself feel better. It’s obviously not working out too well.

When Pat lays Joe’s coat over the back of a chair and puts her own on, cold and dead on her shoulders in comparison, Pete’s watching her with dark, dark eyes. She doesn’t say a word to Pat as she leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Joe. Irl and also in fandom.
> 
> Let me know how (if?) you're liking this so far <3


	4. letting people down is my thing, baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If I spilled my guts,  
>  the world would never look at you the same way.  
> And now I'm here to give you all my love  
> so I can watch your face as I take it all away_

This is how Pete deals with it.

(She doesn’t.)

What Pete does is what she always does – she writes. She stays in her apartment and she gathers every half-full notebook and sticky note and loose piece of paper she can find and she writes down each and every one of the thoughts that passes through her head.

It’s just. It’s just sadness and rage, is what it is. And pain and pain and pain. Pete knows she shouldn’t be the one feeling like this, she shouldn’t be _allowed_ to feel anything at all. She’s the one who essentially broke up with Pat, after all. She’s the one that broke both their hearts in one fell swoop. She didn’t mean to. She just… it just… happened. 

Because Pete woke up three days ago to her phone ringing. She picked it up without looking at who was calling, without thinking, because she’s the kind of person who just trusts people implicitly. She doesn’t worry about who’s going to be calling her. Not anymore. She only gives her number out to people she knows, people she won’t mind talking on the phone to.

“Hello?” she had said, sleep making the words sound mushy on her tongue.

“Petra,” said her mom. “What is going on?”

Pete doesn’t remember a whole lot of the rest of the conversation, just enough to recall the gist. Her mom is undeniably _pissed_ that Pete has – had – a girlfriend, that said girlfriend is Pat Stump, that Pete is twenty-six years old which is almost thirty and hasn’t managed to produce any offspring and now probably never will, that Pete is, that Pete does, that Pete was… and on and on and on.

After her mom hangs up, Pete just sits on the couch for a while. She’s a little shell-shocked. It’s not like she’s ever actually come out or some shit to her parents, but there’s no way her mom didn’t know anyway. Pete is far from discreet.

It’s just.

It’s just, she thought her mom loved her. Like, unconditionally. In that parental kind of way where she couldn’t care less what her daughter’s doing with her life as long as she’s happy and safe and the best at whatever it is she wants to do. Pete’s always naively assumed there’s nothing she could do – short of murdering babies – that would make her mom hate her. But clearly she was wrong.

Pete doesn’t cope well, as a general rule. She fights her weird brain well enough most days but when she’s hurt or sad or scared, all bets are off. All her carefully-constructed mental walls come down and her self-destructive coping mechanisms come out to play. Pete knows this. She’s known it since she was seven and realized her brain was a massive clusterfuck.

But knowing she’s a mess doesn’t mean shit at times like this. So Pete self-destructs.

She doesn’t see anyone, doesn’t talk to anyone. She pulls out the big guns – her secret weapon, her last resort, her best and worst strategy for coping, for _dealing with it_. She turns inward, lets the black and blue spirals of shame and guilt and doubt and self-hatred eat away at the lining of her stomach until she’s bleeding out, literally hemorrhaging emotion into all her nooks and crannies. 

Pete neglects herself, lets herself forget to wash her hair until it’s frizzy and frothy in all its monstrous glory – a head of snakes she normally tries to tame with a flat iron and thick mucus-y gel. She doesn’t wash her face and revels in the acne that starts to crop up. She sleeps on dirty sheets that should’ve been washed weeks ago and curls herself into blankets like she’s a little woodland creature, sleeping through the winter. She dresses like a queen in her underwear and a blanket like a cape over her shoulders and slow-dances in the living room to the saddest music she owns. She has morose, extensive masturbation sessions in the shower, on the couch, hand tucked inside her sweaty briefs. She thinks of Pat. She hates herself. She cries.

She writes the most pretentious, stupid lyrics she’s written in years. If not ever. Things like _I know I’m bad news, I saved it all for you_ and _You were my picket fence_.

Pete wonders what it would be like to quit this whole thing – the band, the record label, her life – and run away to somewhere else. Somewhere warmer, like Mexico. Or somewhere so bitterly cold she’ll never have to think about what she’s feeling ever again. Somewhere that can freeze her heart to stone or melt it down like molten lead until it’s running in streams down her chest. 

She could start over. Probably. She’s this close to a poli sci degree. She could finish college, get a real job. Become an accountant, or a writer, or join a convent and devote her life to God or something. It’s just.

There’s all these people that she loves. There’s Andy and Joe. Her family, though maybe not so much her mom right now. Her friends outside the band and in Chicago and all the people from all the bands she’s signed and toured with. Pat, even. Pete could never leave Pat.

And that’s what hurts the most, right down at the core of it. Pete still loves Pat. Because of course she does. And because Pat’s perfect and good in all the ways Pete isn’t. And Pete can’t imagine her life without Pat in it, not even the slightest tiniest bit present. She doesn’t mind if Pat never talks to her again, never touches her, never sings something soft and quiet and just for Pete. She just needs Pat to _be_. To be okay.

But she’s probably not. Because Pete broke her fucking heart.

Pete’s sadness spiral starts again. 

-

Andy sends her a text after a week. Or, maybe a week. Pete hasn’t been keeping good track of tedious things like time.

_Text me._

_If I don’t hear anything from you in the next hour, I’m calling the police._

Pete calls her back thirty seconds after she reads the texts.

“I’m fine,” she says when Andy picks up.

“You don’t sound fine,” Andy says.

“Well, I am. I just need some time to be alone.”

“Pat’s already had to do all your dirty work,” says Andy. Like that’s an appropriate response to literally anything.

“What.”

“She’s been talking to reporters for you. Said the tweet was just a drunken thing she didn’t mean to actually post. And you guys are friends and not dating and never have been and never will be. Basically just a lot of self-deprecating stuff to keep you out of hot water. So.”

“Oh.” Pete is shocked. Her heart hurts, like a lot.

“So,” Andy says again. “Tell me why she had to step up and be the frontwoman while you’ve been hiding in your little bat cave.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” says Pete. Andy makes a non-committal noise that is indicative of her displeasure with that answer.

“I mean, I can’t. Like my heart hurts too much and I can’t think about it all too closely and I’m really sorry, like so sorry about everything and if I could, I would take it all back. I wish I had a do-over or something. Just this one time.”

“Pete,” says Andy, and her voice is gentle in the way it is only for the people she loves.

“I know, I know. I fucked up.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean you have to get all self-destructive about it. Do you need me?”

And Pete knows that if she said yes, Andy would be over in a heartbeat. She’d probably show up with food and movies and her strong, warm presence that would make Pete feel like everything was going to be okay. She might even let Pete hug her and cry her heart out on her shoulder.

But Pete is a bad person. And her brain is stupid and weak and the only thing it knows is resentment and combustion. So she’s doomed, basically, to rot inside and out in her cramped little apartment until she either dies or just puffs out of existence like a snuffed candlewick. 

So. “No,” Pete says. “I just need a couple days and then I’ll get my shit together.”

“We’re back in the studio next Tuesday,” says Andy. “Are you going to be okay by then?”

Fuck. The studio. Somehow, in all her misery, Pete forgot they’re in the middle of recording an album. The implications of all that, of having to share a space with Pat for hours and hours, now, and not entirely lose her mind… 

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ll be good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out my upload schedule for this fic is "whenever the fuck I want" and also "whenever I get the inspiration to write a chapter." So. 
> 
> It will (probably) get a little happier from here on out. Probably. I do love angst, but I also want to write some happy, sappy, romantic fluff for these girls.
> 
> Let me know your thoughts so far! If you're taking the time to read this, just know I appreciate you so so so much.


	5. your animal side (undress to impress)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What I’ve got will make you feel more alive_  
>  I’ll be your favorite drug, I will get you high

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is... unedited, so I apologize for any potential errors.

Ever since the kiss – the second one, the _real_ one – Pete and Pat have been kind-of-sort-of a thing. Meaning they kiss a lot now, basically whenever they want, and they go on something resembling a date as often as they can while on the road. Joe might know about them. Andy _definitely_ knows about them, because she’s perceptive like that and also because she caught them making out in a supply closet two weeks ago. Nobody outside their little circle of friends knows, but Pete’s secretly okay with that because she’s kind of a ticking time bomb sometimes and she’s afraid that the more people know, the more likely it is that Pat will realize she actually hates her and never talk to her again.

So. They’re together. Kind of.

Honestly, Pete’s having the time of her life. It’s the second of three “off” days before their next show. They’re getting a hotel tonight, somewhere halfway between Las Vegas and Death Valley of all places. They spent the day exploring the tiny oasis town they’re staying in and marveling at the vast, empty desert all around them. It’s hot as fuck outside, but Pete secretly loves the way it feels like the sun is burning holes in her skin.

Also Pat’s been spending all day reminding her they have a hotel tonight, nothing fancy, but someplace clean and _theirs_. Pete’s been _so fucking distracted_ all day by basically every little thing Pat says or does and wondering what exactly she has in store for tonight. And now, _finally_ , they’ve made it up to their room and bid the rest of the group goodnight (Joe totally winked at Pat, which was hilarious and made Pat flush bright-angry-red.

Basically as soon as the door closes, they’re on each other, kissing desperate and hungry and falling back on the bed. Pete doesn’t think she’s ever going to get tired of kissing Pat, the way she moans into Pete’s mouth when Pete gets a knee between her legs, the way she sucks on Pete’s bottom lip like it’s a hard candy. Someday Pete’s going to write a song dedicated to Pat’s mouth.

But right now, there’s more important things she needs to do.

Pete pulls away – something that takes every single shred of self-control she has – and rests back on her knees between Pat’s legs.

“What do you want?” she asks, voice so hoarse it should be embarrassing. “What can I give you?”

“I want – can I,” Pat starts. Her lips are so so pink, thick and swollen and shiny with spit. She’s flushing brighter than the sun. “I just want to fuck you,” she finally gets out. “I mean, is that. Is that okay?”

Pete, whose heart just _thunk_ ed so hard in her chest she almost passed out, thinks that is so much more than okay. “Yeah,” she breathes out. “Yeah, that’s good.”

“Uh,” says Pat. “How do we – ?”

Pete twists around and scoots down the bed so she’s sitting against the headboard. “Hold on,” she says and starts tugging her shirt off over her head. It goes on the floor, as do her jeans and her socks and her – 

“Wait,” says Pat. “I want to.” She makes a vague motion with her hands and moves on her knees until she’s in the V of Pete’s sprawled-out legs, a reverse of their earlier positions.

Pete leans forward a little, obligingly, so Pat can work her hands behind her back and undo the clasp of Pete’s bra. She lifts it off Pete’s shoulders gingerly and lets it fall to the floor with the rest of the clothes.

“You can touch me if you want,” says Pete because Pat’s looking a little awed by her bare chest. “Come on, you’ve seen them before.”

“Well, _yeah_. But not like this.” Pat reaches out a hand and runs the pads of two fingertips across the curve of Pete’s breast, up to her sternum and back out across the nipple. Pete’s not usually into this, her boobs aren’t that sensitive. But Pat makes it feel so _good_ in this vague, alien way and Pete gasps.

Pat looks at her. “Is that good?”

“Yeah,” says Pete, and arches her hips up to work her underwear off. If she lets Pat take over that responsibility, she thinks she’ll spontaneously combust. Pat looks down, hand stilling on Pete’s breast until it’s just kind of cupping her loosely.

She breathes out a quiet, “Oh.”

“Hmm?”

“I just, I would’ve thought you were – that you – ”

“Shaved?” asks Pete. Pat nods. “Nah, it makes me itch.”

“Me too” says Pat.

She backs up a little, dropping her hand off Pete’s chest, and hunches between Pete’s legs, just staring at Pete’s crotch. It’s kind of weird but also intensely hot in a weird way. “I’m gonna take my clothes off,” Pat tells Pete’s vulva. “I think it’d be kind of weird if I didn’t.”

“Okay,” says Pete. She reaches out a little to help, but Pat doesn’t have time for things like undressing slowly. She’s quite literally flinging clothes off the bed, huffing at her jeans when they get bunched up and stuck at her ankles. “Do you want me to – ?” Pete tries to ask.

“No,” says Pat vehemently.

And then just like that she’s naked, too, and grinning at Pete. And all Pete wants to do is look at her and touch her and memorize the shape of her body, but Pat’s already ducking back between Pete’s knees and sucking her index finger into her mouth. Which. Fuck.

“Okay?” asks Pat. Pete can only nod.

Pat brings the tip of her finger to Pete’s entrance and starts pushing gently inside until she’s settled as deep as it will go. She swirls it gently, stroking at Pete’s inner walls and _God_. Pete needs more. “You can, you can do more fingers if you want,” she says. It’s a fucking struggle to get any words out at this point which doesn’t make any sense. It’s only one finger but it’s… oh.

Pat slides a second finger in, which is not enough and not at all what Pete was asking for, but somehow it’s perfect, two fingers tucked up against her pubic bone, stroking gently. Pete doesn’t know why it’s so intense, so good, but she thinks maybe it has something to do with how it’s Pat doing this, Pat’s perfect fingers inside her.

“Ungh,” she says, for lack of a better response.

“Good?” Pat says, like it’s even a question at this point..

“More. Please.”

And Pat obliges, adding a third finger into the mix, stretching Pete enough that she can really feel it. She starts pumping her fingers in and out, slow but firm, and somehow she’s already hitting the places Pete has to search to find when she’s doing this to herself. Pat ducks her head to kiss Pete’s stomach, making the muscles there twitch and jump, and angles her left hand so she can rub tiny circles into Pete’s clit at the same time.

It’s so much and it’s so good and Pete knows she can’t last much longer, so she moans and sighs like a porn star, not because she’s trying to, but because Pat’s just tearing these sounds out of her, fucking her faster and harder with her fingers, speeding up her strokes against Pete’s clit. She’s just mouthing at Pete’s stomach now, tongue curling languid shapes into her skin.

Pat bites, and Pete makes a high noise in the back of her throat, something wanton and embarrassing but fuck, she can’t help it.

She can faintly hear herself, as if from afar or underwater, a litany of please, please, please that gets more and more desperate with every iteration. 

Pat’s fingers are pushing and stroking and rubbing and teasing and it’s so much, just so much, Pete’s muscles coiling tighter and tighter. She can’t keep her eyes open anymore, so she’s just staring at the back of her eyelids, at the little sunbursts dancing there. It’s like she’s in the desert, burning up in the relentless heat and light and – 

_Oh, oh, oh_. 

Pete comes between one heartbeat and the next, twitching and shaking and circling her hips into Pat’s touch. Pat pulls her fingers out gently as Pete comes down but keeps her fingers resting against Pete’s clit, her mouth on Pete’s stomach, until the aftershocks turn into _toomuchtoomuch_ hypersensitivity and Pete has to push at Pat’s head.

Pat looks up at her, almost shy, almost uncertain. “Okay?” she asks, lips inches away from the livid winestain bruises now decorating Pete’s torso, her fingers still wet with the warmth of Pete’s insides. “Was that – ?”

“Pat,” says Pete. “That was so so good.”

She surges forward to kiss Pat, to nip at her lips and tongue at the corner of her mouth and show her just how good it truly was. “Let me, let me,” she says, and chases Pat down until she’s lying flat against the mattress.

Pete crawls down her body, kissing at all the bits of Pat she’s never seen before, soft soft skin like something fragile and holy. She grabs hold of one of Pat’s wrists and licks at the blueish-green veins there, like spiderwebs under her skin.

 _I love you I love you I love you_ , she thinks.

“You’re so beautiful,” she says out loud.

Pete finally makes her way down to where she really wants to be, to the reddish-blond thatch of curls between Pat’s legs, to the heat and soft, moist core beneath. Pat makes soft little noises when Pete begins to nose at her folds, spread her open with her tongue. Pete points her tongue and pokes lightly at Pat’s entrance, makes the muscles there twitch. Pat gasps and grabs at Pete’s head, sinks her hands into Pete’s hair. Pete reaches up a hand to hold her there, to let Pat know that is definitely okay.

She gets down to business, alternating between sucking on Pat’s clit, circling her tongue around the little nub, and teasing, tonguing at where Pat is warmest and wettest. Because Pete might not have Pat’s skill and dexterity when it comes to fingering, but she knows how to use her tongue. Like a weapon, sometimes. Like a gift, others. 

Pete feels holy down here, drinking down the communion of Pat’s moans and the scent of her. Pat doesn’t last long either, moans picking up speed and desperation and devolving into a repetitive “uh, uh, uh” and then she’s coming, vaginal muscles fluttering like butterfly wings around Pete’s tongue. 

When Pete pulls away, wipes her mouth off when the back of her hand, Pat is staring at her like she’s the fucking moon or something. Like she’s the whole damn universe. Pete isn’t sure what to do with that look. It’s not the kind of thing she ever sees on another person, not when they’re looking at her.

“Hey,” she says.

“Thank you,” says Pat.

They fall asleep with the lights on, half under and half out of the blankets. Pete falls asleep to Pat’s fingers running through the fine little hairs at the base of her neck, to her other hand curled protectively around Pete’s middle. Pete falls asleep to the words _I love you_ running through her brain, over and over and over.

 _I love you I love you I love you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some disclaimers: 1) This is my first time ever writing a sex scene and 2) I have never actually had sex irl. So if it sucks, now you know why.
> 
> Death Valley is the sexiest song off SRAR and you can fight me about that.


	6. cue all the love to leave my heart; it's time for me to fall apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Oh and I’ve heard you got it, got it so bad  
>  'Cause I am the best you’ll never have_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you my update schedule would be sporadic.
> 
> This one's short and not-so-sweet.

There are very few times in Pat’s life where she feels truly peaceful. 

Being in an airplane, staring out the window at the little tiny cars and ant-people and skyscrapers reduced to diorama-scale buildings – this is one of the only things that can give her that kind of gut-warm feeling. She used to be afraid of planes until touring cured her of that phobia. Now she loves them because of this perspective, this exact view she has right now of the world.

Because, see, everything’s so small down there. So insignificant (but not in a bad way). Pat thinks this is what it’s like to transcend herself, to unstick her gluey corporeal body from the real-life mundanity that holds it and finally figure out what her purpose in life is.

That sounds a little hokey. Pat knows that. But she’s been reading a lot lately, learning how to meditate and find her inner self and all that. It sounds kind of dumb but she thinks it’s actually working. Pat’s got this whole new perspective on life right now – she’s been eating healthier and actually working out seriously for like the first time in her life. She dyed her hair, gave Pat Stump a new public image, went to therapy.

Oh yeah, and she made an album.

It’s still weird to her, even now, that she, like, _did that_. Pat has never ever been the frontman, never been confident enough to put herself out there in the world. But a lot of things have happened since she and Pete broke up, since the band broke up – that is, went on an “extended hiatus” – since Pat self-combusted and broke down and rose from the ashes like a little baby phoenix. And one of those things is Pat realized that she needed to do something for herself. Something big. 

So she wrote some songs and they sucked, so she wrote more songs until they didn’t suck so much. And then she made actual music from her words with drumbeats and guitar riffs and god yes, more synthesizers. In short, Pat made the music she’d been dying to make for years and years. Music that didn’t fit the mold of Fall Out Boy. She let it flow out of her like blood and sweat and bile and it was _perfect_.

Ask anybody now, and they’ll tell you Pat is doing amazing. Top of her game. 

Except.

It gets a little lonely, Pat thinks, being a solo artist. Sure, she has her band and her friends and everyone who helped her make the music and supports her on the road. But they’re not… well, they’re not Joe and Pete and Andy. They’re not her girls, her best fucking friends in the whole world. 

No one writes Pat lyrics anymore on torn-up diner napkins and the backs of receipts. No one taps out soothing snare rhythms on her shoulder blades when Pat’s puking her guts out before a show. No one gets her gummy worms from the convenience store down the street from the hotel just because. There’s no _This made me think of you_. There’re no inside jokes, no _Remember that time we…_ Pat has colleagues now. Coworkers and producers and a crew, but she doesn’t have any friends.

When Pat gets back to Chicago in just a few hours, there will be no one waiting to welcome her home.

It’s not that she _needs_ company, exactly. Pat’s probably the most introverted introvert there is. Except for lately but that’s, well, faking-it-til-you-make-it stage persona kinda stuff. But there are times that she just needs some basic human interaction. From someone she doesn’t employ.

What Pat needs is Pete, to be quite honest. She misses Pete so goddamn much.

Because Pete’s doing _great_. Pete’s out there with her little electro-pop band, CEO-ing a record label and raising a kid basically all on her own and she’s just generally killing the whole being-an-adult thing. And Pat’s just… Pat’s transforming herself into something so different she’s not sure she’s going to recognize herself for much longer. Because no matter how much healthier she is right now, no matter how accomplished and inspirational she is, Pat would give it all up just for one more chance with Pete Wentz.

And the thing is, Pat doesn’t just miss the whole romance-y side of it. Sure the kissing and fucking and just generally being-in-love of it were great, but at the end of the day Pat just misses the security of knowing Pete was always going to be in her life. Always going to be her best friend. Always going to be there. Pat would kill to have that back.

Almost as if in a dream, Pat goes through the motions of pulling her tray table down and digging her notebook out of her carry-on bag. She finds an old, chewed-on pen stolen from some hotel along the way underneath her laptop and pulls the cap off, sticking it right back into its rightful place between her teeth. She starts to write.

 _I wish I could forget you. I know I’m probably the one you want to forget. I think it’s time for me to fall apart. You’re gone, but I’m doing okay with the memory of your eyes. It’s just… I thought you were my happily-ever-after, my white picket fence. I never expected to be betrayed by you. I would take a bullet for you, but you’re the one pulling the trigger on me. God, I miss you. I just want to trash your love. I just want to sing to you every day until you don’t hurt anymore_. 

It’s for Pete. Of course it is. Every fucking thought that passes through her head is about Pete, every tug on her heartstrings, every smile on her face. Pete’s in her skin, her cells, her fucking bone marrow. Pat knows she deserves better, something more. She knows she should move on, should have already moved on from this but… she just can’t.

She tucks the notebook back in her bag almost guiltily. It doesn’t feel like one of her songs, after all. It isn’t even a song, not really. It’s just some self-pitying stream-of-conscious garbage she’s going to forget about. 

It’s nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have realized, I suck at dialogue and I hate writing it, so I treated myself to writing this dialogue-free chapter consisting entirely of Pat's inner monologue.
> 
> God, MMY makes me cry.


	7. one more off-key anthem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _We are professional ashes of roses,  
>  This kerosene's live_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Between writer's block and real life stuff, this one took forever to write. I hope it's okay.

The only reason Pete and Pat ever talk to each other again is because Pete’s kind of a dumbass. She says yes immediately to Joe’s invite to her Halloween party this year without realizing that Joe would also invite Pat. Because of course she would. Because Joe’s kind of a conniving genius when she puts her mind to it.

Joe knows exactly what the fuck she’s doing. That’s probably how the band stayed together as long as it did.

So Pete shows up at Joe’s apartment on Halloween night, wearing only the barest hint of glitter and oil paint (because Joe had said, “It’s not a _costume party_ , it’s just a friendly get-together that happens to coincide with Halloween,” in the most disdainful tone she could muster but Pete is, well, Pete and there’s no way in hell she’s going to a Halloween party with a bare face and in street clothes), and it’s only when she sets foot inside the living room that she realizes she’s been taken for a fool.

Because Pat’s there. Obviously. Just sitting on the couch without a care in the world because she doesn’t know Pete’s there yet, standing behind her and staring at her like a total creep.

“And that’s what I was saying! Like, how does it – ” Pat’s talking to Joe animatedly, hands flitting around her head to drive some point home. But she abruptly cuts off when she follows Joe’s gaze over her shoulder. And then.

And then she’s looking Pete dead in the eye.

“Uh. Hey,” Pat says awkwardly.

Pete hasn’t seen her in so long. In paparazzi photos and grainy fan snapshots and shaky videos on YouTube, maybe, but not in real life. Pat is… Pat is. Well for one thing she looks so different – her hair’s bleached like skeleton bones under bright sun, and her eyes are different somehow, and she looks older and more mature in this tentative, subtle way you wouldn’t be able to identify if you didn’t know her like Pete does – but she’s also exactly the same fucking Pat.

Pete’s heart goes through a complicated series of irregular pulsations and her stomach twists like she’s watching a scary movie. There’s something undefinable about seeing the person you used to love when you weren’t expecting it, something huge and squirmy and terrifying. It’s like, just like that, all of Pete’s old feelings come back. All the emotions, the memories, every last tiny scrap of things she thought she’d forgotten about.

When she played this scenario in her head before (because, yes, she had a long period of thinking about all the things she’d do and say if she ever saw Pat again), she assumed Pat would give her the cold shoulder, just flat-out ignore her. And that would be that.

But. That’s not what’s happening.

Pete blinks out of her little trance to realize Pat’s staring at her in vague expectation. “What?” she asks, tiny and breathless.

“I said, how’s it going, Pete?” says Pat. And it’s so easy, it’s so her… Jesus, Pete’s about ten seconds from tears all of a sudden.

“Oh, you know,” she says. “It’s going.”

The corners of Pat’s mouth quirk up in the softest, most genuine smile Pete’s ever seen in her _life_. God. “That’s it? You trying to get me to prod?”

Pete laughs. “Sorry, I just… didn’t know you’d be here,” she says. 

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” says Pat, not looking at Pete but shooting an inscrutable look at Joe, who holds up her hands in mock surrender. “But really,” she says. “Sit. How are you?”

 _I’m so lonely_ , Pete doesn’t say. _I feel like a live grenade most of the time_.

“Okay, let’s just pick a topic then. The label? Bronx? Los Angeles as a whole?”

“I’ve been writing,” says Pete.

Pat’s face is so open and she’s not giving Pete a goddamn _thing_ to go on. “Oh?”

“It’s not – it’s not right. Somehow. It’s just. Everything’s just a little off and it’s driving me crazy.” It’s the closest she can get to opening her heart up to Pat on this couch right now. It’s the closest she can get to saying what she really wants to say.

“I’ve been writing too,” says Pat.

“I know. I heard the album. It was incredible.”

Pat laughs at her. “Not _that_ ,” she says. “I’ve been writing stuff, too, that sounds…”

“Like Fall Out Boy,” says Joe. And Pete just about comes out of her skin, having completely forgot she was there.

“I’ve heard it,” says Joe. “It sounds good. It sounds like us.”

“Now I’m certain you invited us here on false pretenses,” says Pat.

“Not false, per se. But if you two want to work out whatever the deal’s been, I won’t get in the way.”

-

So, somehow, everything goes back to something approaching normal. Some days Pete wonders how it’s like the past few years never even happened, but most days she just doesn’t question it. She’s happy enough to wake up to a text from Pat about some show they’re both watching or look forward to dinner or a movie or a party with Pat on a Friday night. It’s almost like they’re dating again, which is… a dangerous thought, so Pete tries not to have it very often.

It doesn’t fix everything. Pete still feels like she’s falling to pieces more days than not and she’s constantly asking herself if this is it for her, if it’s ever going to get any better than this. Because obviously her life is better now, between her son and her work and the friendships she’s working so hard to mend. But still.

Pete loves to drive, always has. Sometimes there’s nothing more soothing to her than a long, pointless drive with the windows cranked half-down and the stereo blasting something bright and desperate. Since she’s moved to LA, she doesn’t get that peace very often. When she’s in the car, it’s usually to sit in traffic for hours and not really get anywhere. Recently, though, she’s mapped out some routes that take her off the main thoroughfare and on the most backroad-esque roads the City of Angels has to offer..

That’s what she’s doing now, just driving and thinking. The radio’s turned low to some alt rock station, sending out signals in the form of power chords and raspy vocals. Pete’s got the windows down and the heat all the way up to cancel out the autumn chill. This is about as close to happy as she gets.

Pete thinks she might actually get her band back together. Pat won’t stop dropping hints about the lyrics and chord progressions she’s been penning, things that are half-formed but whole in a deep-down, fundamental way. Joe and Andy are so on-board it’s scary. Pete suspects they never wanted to stop in the first place. 

So that leaves Pete as the only wild card, the missing link.

It’s just – there’s no template for this. No thesis, no guidelines. The majority of Pete’s adult life, and her adolescent life for that matter, has been a series of spur-of-the-moment decisions and she’s finally at a mature enough place where she doesn’t _want_ that anymore. She feels both achingly young and perilously old at the same time. There’s no in-between because there never has been with her. She’s an all-or-nothing kind of person to the extreme.

Pete drives and drives into the early evening dusk and wishes for a sign. 

Her phone buzzes in the cupholder with an incoming text. She glances down to read the screen. It’s from Pat. Pete flicks on her turn signal and makes a U-turn to head back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does life ever stop being lonely? Asking for a friend.
> 
> There's not much more left of this story. Let me know what you're thinking about it.


	8. I need that dark in a little more light (more dreams, less life)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You are what you love,  
>  not who loves you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow.... long time, no see, guys. I'm back from my writer's block for now and I am deeply, deeply sorry for the wait.
> 
> As I've said before, writing dialogue is my kryptonite. So, to get myself back into the swing of things, I decided to try to write an almost-entirely-dialogue chapter. Because of course. Please enjoy this little heart-to-heart between Joe and Pat and revel in the warm fuzzies because it's November now, buddies!!
> 
>  
> 
> Also, happy 10k words to me :D

“It’s very hard to learn to love yourself, you know?” Pat says.

Joe hums vaguely in agreement.

“‘Cause like, I know I don’t need anyone else to be whole. There’s nothing about being single and just taking time for myself that makes me intrinsically lonely or, like, less of a person. And I _know_ that, but it’s really hard to make yourself believe it.”

Joe nods her head a little, frizzy hair flopping in a glorious halo around her head.

“I think it’s just because you’re the only person who really knows you, like all the good parts and all the shitty, slimy parts, and all the – hey!” She snaps her fingers under Joe’s nose. “Are you even paying attention to me?”

“I am,” Joe says with the slow, dignified air of someone who was so obviously _not_ paying attention, “listening very intently.”

“Obviously.”

“Hey, you’re the one who invited me here to watch movies,” says Joe, gesturing widely at the television screen.

“And to talk.”

“Did you specifically state that in your text?”

“It was implied.”

Joe nods solemnly. “Well, I _did_ nearly fail English every year of high school,” she says. “So I can’t be held accountable for my inability to read context clues.”

“For the love of – !” Pat attempts to throw one of the couch cushions at Joe’s smiling face but Joe catches it midair and hugs it to her chest.

“Thanks!” she says brightly.

Pat shakes her head. “God…”

“Well?” says Joe. “I’m listening now. You have my whole, full, undivided attention.”

“I don’t even know if I want it anymore.”

Joe gives her puppy dog eyes. “Come oooon,” she says.

“That’s not cute,” says Pat, pointing a finger at her.

“You know it is.”

“It’s not,” Pat repeats. “It’s just entirely unfair. No one should hold that much power in their eyeballs alone.”

“Are you jealous?” Joe turns dial up to eleven, making her eyes as big as sad as she can.

“No, nope, absolutely not,” says Pat.

“You are,” says Joe. “But it’s okay. Keep going, you were saying something about being in love with yourself.”

Pat digs her fingertips deep into her eye sockets. “I was _saying_ I don’t need to be in love with anyone to be happy.”

“Mhmm.”

“And I know that.”

“Right.”

“But I don’t think it’s a _bad_ thing to be in love with someone. And I don’t think it makes me inherently less of a person to _not_ be in love.”

“…Got it.”

“Do you?”

“Maybe?” Joe tries her best to look convincing and utterly fails.

“So, anyway,” says Pat, forging on regardless of whether Joe’s really getting it. “I’m much better at being okay with myself, but I’m still so in love with her and that’s okay. I mean, I think it is?”

“Wait.” Joe is so lost. “Who the fuck are we talking about?”

“Uh, Pete? Obviously?”

“You’re in love with Pete? Like, since when?”

“Since… well, kind of since forever? I don’t remember exactly, but it’s definitely been years.” Pat makes an expansive gesture with her hands, trying to contain the vast timeline of her-and-Pete into something manageable. 

Meanwhile, Joe is quietly having her mind blown. “Wait, what? Just… what?”

“What, what?” says Pat, a little self-consciously. 

“How long were you and Pete a thing? Or, like, _were_ you a thing? Wait, is this why you two just bitched at each other the whole time we were making _Folie_? Wait… is this why you guys aren’t talking to each other anymore?”

“We’re talking,” says Pat.

“Yeah, only because I basically forced you two to spend time together at that party.”

“That,” says Pat, putting on her sternest _I’m-an-adult_ face, “was a bold fucking move.”

“It’s the only kind of move I’m capable of,” says Joe. “And you’re avoiding the question.”

“Which one?”

“All of them. Don’t be coy.”

Pat sighs. “I mean, we kind of dated for like, a while.”

“How long is ‘a while’?” Joe interrupts.

“Maybe… two years?” says Pat.

“Two?” Joe’s kind of having trouble forming words right now. “ _Years_?”

“Uh, give or take. And then, do you remember that whole Twitter thing?”

Joe nods. She does, vaguely. “When you posted about how much you wanted to like, run away and marry Pete? That was real?”

“Yeah. And it… well, it went over kind of badly with some people and Pete got scared and broke up with me and uh, well. Then we kind of tried to play nice and be friends but it obviously didn’t work, so then we just stopped talking to each other.”

Joe doesn’t know what to say. She settles for a, “That’s shitty” and a careful squeeze of Pat’s shoulder.

Pat leans into the touch. “Yeah,” she says. “It was… or, _is_ , I guess.”

“So, wait,” says Joe, trying to find the threads of the conversation they were having before. “What’s happening now? Are you guys still…?”

“We talk,” says Pat. “And text and stuff. I don’t know. It’s not the same, but I kind of never thought we’d even talk again so,” she shrugs, “I’ll just take what I can get.”

“But that’s so _sad_ ,” says Joe.

Pat shrugs. “I mean,” she says. “That’s just life.”

No it’s not, Joe wants to say. Joe wants to grab onto Pat and not let go until she understands how wonderful she is. She settles for squeezing Pat tight in the best hug she’s ever given in her life. “I love you,” she whispers into Pat’s hair, which smells like lavender and home. “You don’t even know how much.”

Pat, who has been stoically trying to keep her tears at bay, loses the battle and lets them fall, hot and sweet down her cheeks and onto the soft, thick cotton of Joe’s sweater. “Thank you,” she says, a little croaky around the lump in her throat.

“I just feel like,” Pat says when she finally has her voice back, “sometimes, bad things follow me. Like, I try so _hard_ to be happy but nothing ever ends up the way I want it to.”

“I think everyone feels that way sometimes,” says Joe.

Pat makes a little noise of frustration in the back of her throat. “No, it’s like… like, I’m always saying yes to things but sometimes I just want to be like, ‘No, fuck you.’ But if I try to say no and do everything my way, it just comes back to haunt me.”

“I know we’re having like six conversations at once,” says Joe. “But I think you need to take a step back and think about what you want.” Pat opens her mouth to speak, but Joe shushes her. “No, you don’t get to worry about all the what-ifs and all the ‘everything I touch dies’ bullshit. What do you want? In general, from life or whatever. What do you want?”

Pat is quiet for a while. What _does_ she want? “I don’t – ” she starts to say.

“Nuh-uh-uh,” says Joe. “You don’t get to say you don’t know.”

“I think,” says Pat. “I just want to be happy.”

“Go on.”

“I know things can’t go back to normal, we can’t just go back in time and fix all the shit we’ve done to each other, but I just want to be friends again. You and me and Pete and Andy. And I want to write music again, not for me but for all of us. I…” she trails off. “I miss that.”

“Well,” says Joe. “Geez.” 

“Is that bad?” And god, does Pat looked like Joe just kicked her dog.

“No!” she says, probably more forcefully than she has to. “It’s just… not what I expected you to say.”

“Oh.” 

“I’m gonna have to think about all this some more,” says Joe.

“Of course,” says Pat. 

“I mean, I miss you guys, too. It’s just, I don’t know how well that would work if we tried to… again…”

“I know, I know. I was just trying to be honest.”

“And I respect that,” says Joe. “ _Deeply_. But for now, can we just get back to watching _Home Alone_? That dude’s about to get hit in the face with a paint can and you know that’s my favorite part.”

Pat laughs. “Yeah,” she says. “Let’s do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Concerns? 
> 
> My favorite coffee shop near campus closed last year because they were moving to a new location and the new store opened up a couple days ago...SO - I wrote the first third of this there while sipping on a lovely café au lait and the rest of this when I got home and the caffeine hit. So, if it feels like it moves too fast I deeply apologize... and blame the coffee.
> 
> I hope you're all staying warm and having deep conversations with good friends. I know I am.


	9. you're the antidote to everything except for me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And besides, in the mean-meantime  
>  I'm just dreaming of tearing you apart_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My updating schedule continues to be "just whenever the fuck I want."
> 
> This one's short and sweet (? ish?)

Sometimes Pete forgets that she’s bipolar.

Most of the time, she feels like a normal person. Some of the time, she feels so sad and empty she can’t get out of bed or wash her face for days, and ends up slumped on the corner of her shitty like a deflated helium balloon. And yet another, smaller, part of the time, she feels like she’s flying.

The thing is, Pete’s mania is often insidious. It creeps up on her like long Grinch fingers up her spine, like she’s a frog being slowly boiled to death in a giant fucking pot, slowly but surely until it’s too late for her to do anything but think, _Fuck_.

And then nights like these, when it all catches up to her, she starts to lose her very grip on reality. In other times, worse times, the years when Pete was at her worst and most terrifying, nights like these would end in her getting blackout drunk or half-stoned to death on Xans and Ambien, anything that would take the edge off and put her out of commission for the twenty-four hours at least.

In worse times, she would end up at a glitzy bar, glitter on her shoulders like magic, neon lights sparking in the corners of her eyes. She would make smoldering eye contact with some boy or girl and get fucked in a bathroom stall or on someone’s sagging couch.

In worse times, she’d sit on the closed lid of her toilet and twirl a shiny razor between her fingers and think about what kind of damage that little blade could do. Sometimes she’d use it, sometimes not. 

But this time is different. For one, Pete’s not alone now, left to her own devices and free to do whatever her brain tells her to. She’s not young and stupid anymore, either, at least – not as much as she used to be. Currently, she and her girls are working on something new and exciting, a record unlike any other they’ve made before. “We’re saving rock and roll,” Pete keeps telling them. “We’re gonna take back the whole fucking world!”

Joe and Andy will laugh when she says it, nod along like they agree. But Pat… Pat will look Pete in the eye, that deep, deep look she gives her sometimes, like she’s staring into Pete’s very soul. Pat will look at her like she knows how much this means to Pete, how much of Pete’s heart and soul and body, down to her fucking bone marrow, she’s putting into this. Pat will look at her like no one’s ever looked at Pete before, like no one ever will again. Her eyes will say, _Yes, we will_.

And that’s another thing that’s different now. Pat and Pete are, well, together. It feels so reductive to just say it like that, but Pete supposes it’s the simplest way to put how she feels into actual words. Pete’s terrified most of the time, scared to death of something she can’t name. 

Sure, some people have been cruel about it, called her and Pat nasty names. Pete’s mom cried for an hour when she told her, but she’s over it now. Or, at least she says she is. But for the most part, the world has accepted them with open arms. Teenage girls send Pete messages on social media, little notes filled with emojis and things like _you’ve given me the strength to come out_ and _i’m not afraid to be myself anymore_ and _thank you thank you thank you_.

Even the reporters are pretty chill about it, whenever Pete deigns to do interviews. They’re keeping the album a secret, acting like they’re still on an extended hiatus whenever anyone asks. Which is very, very often. Up until now, Pete thought the best and brightest secret she’d ever kept was Pat, but she’s having some second thoughts now. (But she would never, ever tell Pat that. Even if it is mostly a joke.)

So it’s all so _good_ right now. And yet.

Pete is having a very hard time.

Devoid of her usual outlets for this fire inching through her veins and held back from finding new ones by responsibilities – she has a _kid_ now, for crying out loud; no matter that he’s with his other mom this weekend, he’s still _her fucking responsibility_ – and social norms alike, Pete is the very dictionary definition of struggling right now.

She thinks Pat can tell. Pat’s been giving her these meaningful looks all day, through the studio glass while she records her vocals, across the table when they all break for lunch at some overpriced L.A. fusion restaurant. Pat’s always been more sensitive to Pete’s inner turmoil than even Pete is most of the time.

So it’s no surprise that when Pete finally breaks down, Pat is right there with her.

They go back to the tiny little apartment they’ve been renting while in the studio, a whitewashed monstrosity with gorgeous views of a parking lot and a strip mall and sometimes, when they’re lucky, the strobing blue-and-red lights of a cop car as some kids get busted for smoking weed and blasting bad pop music from their car stereos in the middle of the night.

Pete drove them home, skin buzzing like static the whole way. Her night vision, normally subpar at best, made it more like trying to drive with her eyes closed tight. The streetlights all looked both too big and too small all at once, way far off in the distance but close enough to catch her by surprise when they changed to yellow.

“Jesus,” Pat had said after the third or fourth yellow light Pete had blown through. “They’re not a suggestion, Pete.”

But they made it back in one piece, thanks to Pete’s impressive muscle memory, borne from years of living in her own skin. Once they get in the door, Pat goes to sit at the kitchen table, tapping at her phone. Knowing her, she’s probably already writing chord progressions for the next album.

Pete takes the time to untie her shoe laces and line her sneakers up, neat and organized, against the wall by the hall closet. She feels like she’s downed a line of espresso shots, so jittery she’s not sure if her heart’s going to give out before the night is through. She feels, at the same time, both horrible and _so good_.

“I’m gonna shower,” Pete says. It comes out almost normal.

Pat hums in response. “Go for it.”

Showers have always been somewhat of a refuge for Pete. They’re the only place she ever feels truly warm, deep down to the meaty core of her. And they’re the perfect place to lose your shit.

Pete tries to forestall the inevitable, turning on the shower and letting the water warm up as it creaks its way through the pipes. She takes off her clothes nice and slow and folds them into neat squares on the toilet lid. She takes her pajamas off the hook on the back of the door and plops them down on the shower mat, pulls down her towel and wraps its around her shoulders, letting its fluffy warmth settle over her like a promise.

She sits down on the mat next to her little pile of clothes and is still sitting there thirty-five minutes later when Pat knocks on the door. She’s still sitting there when her silence prompts Pat to crack the door open and slip into the room. She’s still sitting there when Pat kneels down in front of her and pulls Pete’s head forward to rest on her shoulder.

“Oh, honey,” she says, and it’s some combination of those words and the genuine _care_ behind them that releases something inside Pete so her tears can start to slip free.

“Baby,” says Pat. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” says Pete, all sniffly and crackly. “Everything, everything, everything.”

And Pat just holds her, until the crackling under Pete’s skin starts to dissipate into water vapor and the darkness in her head and heart lifts just a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not have bipolar disorder. The closest I've experienced is depression and a bit of hypomania. I do not intend to offend anyone with my portrayal of bipolar here.


	10. why the hell is there a light that's keeping us forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Pretty pout, pout (while you bottomed out, out),  
>  I can't stop it when there's chemicals keeping us together_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be careful not to cut yourself on this edge.
> 
> Additionally - when will I learn to stop using so many goddamn italics so I don't have to go through and html code every single one of them?!!?

When Pat gets mad, she gets _mad_.

And today Pete is really trying her last shred of patience. They’ve been cooped up in the van for about nine hours now, because Pete swears this album, this time, is going to make them big-time emo rockstars for real, but the rest of them have yet to see actual results. Sure, touring is different now. The crowds are bigger and louder and scarier (Andy’s trying to help Pat work on her confidence, but Pat’s still waiting on a return on her investment for that one, too).

Pat has been trying really, really hard lately to not let her temper get the best of her. She realizes, which she thinks is very mature and adult-like of her, that sometimes she can be a bit of an asshole. Pat knows she’s a good person, fundamentally. But sometimes she’s also kind of a monster. Even she can admit that.

But she’s trying to work on it. She’s not sure when exactly she came to the decision to, well, stop getting pissed at every little thing, but she thinks it correlates pretty closely to the start of this whole _thing_ with Pete.

Because Pete, darling of the scene and rising celebrity of the world at large, is apparently somehow a little bit in love with Pat. Which is… Well, it sure is something. Pat’s, with her typically rock bottom self-image, isn’t sure if she’s more flattered or bemused by the whole situation. Because suddenly Pete wants to make eyes at her all day while the others are around and kiss her senseless in dark corners when they’re finally alone.

It’s Pat’s first real relationship, because her fourth grade love affair with the tiny blonde kid that she shared a desk with absolutely does _not_ count. And in all fairness, she kind of expected Pete to be, well, _Pete_ about it. Pat’s the first to know that tabloid-Pete and real-life-Pete are very much different people, but she still assumed that Pete would be… she doesn’t even know. Not so secretive about them? Not so shy? Not so romantic? Pat knows it makes her a terrible person to assume all this but she can’t help it. The _real_ real-life-Pete is so so different than she even knew.

But that absolutely does not mean it’s all unicorns and rainbows all the time. Plenty of times, like right now for instance, Pat finds Pete is still capable of getting on her every last nerve.

So, today. Right now. Pete just so happens to be sharing the back bench seat of Joe’s beautifully shitty van with Pat. Andy’s driving like the smart, responsible adult person Pat wishes she could be all the time. Or even, like, 55% of the time. Joe’s riding shotgun and playing DJ with their haphazard collection of CDs. And Pete is.

Pete is actively trying to bounce out of her fucking skin. There’s a whole three-and-a-half feet of potential real estate between them on this seat and a hot, heavy summer afternoon is settling in all around them which, for all intents and purposes, should drive them further apart. And yet, Pete is pushed up _right against_ Pat, sticky bare arm glued to Pat’s side, road-greasy hair tickling the junction between Pat’s neck and shoulder.

“ _Pete_ ,” Pat hisses. “Can you maybe move over a little?”

Pete hums into Pat’s shoulder. “Why?” Her breath is hot and warm on Pat’s skin, beating down on her in tandem with the sun through the window.

“Because I’m really, really fucking hot,” says Pat. “ _Please_.” She’s starting to lose it, just a little.

“But Paaaat,” Pete whines.

“Pete, I am going to actually punch you in about ten seconds if you do not move _right now_ ,” Pat says through bared teeth.

Pete sighs, put upon, and moves away about six whole inches. The worn vinyl of the seat squeaks under her sweaty thighs as she goes. “So much for true love,” she says.

Normally, Pat would let that go. But Pete just spent a whole hour yesterday whisper-lecturing her about _Could you be any more conspicuous_? and _I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but it is, so can you please stop staring at me like that in public_ , so Pat’s trying not to choke to death on the hypocrisy.

“Oh, so it’s okay when you say things like that,” says Pat. Which. Well. It _is_ what she’s feeling, so she tries not to feel too bad about actually saying it.

“Excuse me?” says Pete. “What the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Just that not even twenty four hours ago, you were bitching at me for saying you looked cute in that shirt and now you’re clinging to me like a fucking lamprey and making out with my neck and, oh, I don’t know, _professing your undying love for me_.”

“A lamprey?”

“Is that what you’re really choosing to focus on?” Pat is so angry right now, her bones are just about to break into a rolling boil.

“I mean, if anything I’m like a koala bear,” Pete says. “You know, clinging to you.”

“Is this a fucking joke to you?”

Pete smiles with all her teeth. “Absolutely. You’re adorable when you get mad.”

Pat doesn’t think she’s ever experienced a true moment of clarity before this moment. For just a second, it’s like the veil over Pete has lifted and Pat is seeing her true self underneath all the glamor. The thing is, Pat’s been head-over-heels for Pete for so long that she kind of puts Pete on a pedestal. There’s this image of Pete that Pat knows she has, this vision of Pete that is beautiful and perfect and ideal in all the best ways, that she knows is just an image because _sometimes_ , like right now, it slips away.

When Pat pictures Pete, when she’s texting her or talking on the phone, or having whispered late-night conversations in their dark hotel room while the Joe and Andy are sleeping on the next bed over, she sees her in a certain way, in a certain light. But Pete isn’t like the Pete that lives in Pat’s head. Because she’s a real person with flaws and frustrations and bodily functions just like everyone else. Whenever the veneer is stripped off, Pat feels a little sick to her stomach, a little slimy.

There are times (and this is one of her darkest secrets, something she would never admit to anyone ever) that she thinks maybe she doesn’t even _like_ Pete. Maybe she hates her.

Incidentally, Pat tried to have this conversation with Andy one time. She tried to explain her epiphany, that sometimes people are disappointing and different than you think they are. Andy had shrugged and said mildly, “People are just people.”

When Pat hadn’t shut up about it, Andy had offered even more enlightenment: “There’s nothing wrong with realizing someone is human.”

Pat thought about that, about the fact that she probably had an idealized image of every person she knew and that, more likely than not, it fell apart sometimes. It made sense, in a deep, confusing, philosophical way. She started seeing Pete as mostly human again, still shiny and lovely, but not perfect. And it worked for a while.

But recently.

Recently, Pete’s been making Pat feel more angry than not, often disgusted and burbling with strange resentment at all times. She can’t understand it and she hates it. Pat thinks she’s drifting farther and farther away from Pete. There’s something opaque and undefinable between them, something that’s growing larger and more irregular every day.

So when Pat snaps, it’s a long time coming.

Pete’s still smiling at her. She’s beatific, like she’s done nothing wrong. It’s her _love me!_ smile, her desperate-for-attention grin, and all Pat wants to do is smack it right off her face.

“Stop the car,” says Pat, low with contained fury. Andy of course doesn’t hear her, so she roars it this time. “Stop the car.”

It’s abrupt, the jerk of the wheel, the crunch of wheels transitioning from pavement to dirt and gravel. Everyone’s heads snap forward a little when they come to a stop. The van rocks gently as cars continue to fly by on the highway to their left.

Andy and Joe turn around to look at Pat, bewildered. “Are you okay?” asks Joe.

“I need to talk to Pete for a moment,” Pat says. They nod. “Alone.”

“Oh yeah, I guess we’ll just… take a walk,” says Joe, reaching to unbuckle her seatbelt.

After the doors slam shut, Pat takes a deep, steadying breath through her nose and turns to face Pete. Pete, for once, looks humbled and confused. Scared, even. Just a little.

“What did I do?” she says.

“That’s exactly the problem,” says Pat.

“I don’t – I don’t.”

“I’m really, really trying to make this whole thing work, but _you_ ,” Pat points a finger at Pete, “are not making this any easier.”

“Is this about – ? I was just kidding, Pat, I wasn’t trying to make you mad or anything, swear.” Pete looks so lost right now. If it were any other situation, Pat would feel bad for yelling at her. Pat would be the one to say _I’m sorry_ and _forgive me_.

But this isn’t any other situation.

“I’m fine with being your little secret,” says Pat. “But you do _not_ get to control my life, not ever. You don’t get to tell me what to say and what to do and you _especially_ do not get to turn around and do the same exact thing you just got pissed at me for doing. Got it?”

Pete nods.

And then she ruins it by saying, “You know, communication is very important in a relationship.”

They sit in silence until Joe and Andy get back to the van. By the time they show up, Joe tentatively poking her head around the passenger seat and asking, “You good?” Pete and Pat are sitting at complete opposite ends of the bench seat.

Later, in their group hotel room, Pat lies flat on her back, hand tucked inside Pete’s sleeping, sweaty fist and stares up at the ceiling until her thoughts turn into dreams. _All couples fight_ , she tells herself. _You’re just going through a rough patch. Everything’s changing and you’re stressed out. It makes sense to be a little on edge_.

It is, though Pat doesn’t know it yet, the beginning of the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the words of Andy, people just people sometimes.
> 
> Almost there, my dudes. This last chapter is going to be long and full of feels, so buckle up!


	11. i don't know where i'm going, but i don't think i'm coming home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Let's be alone together,_  
>  we could stay young forever,  
> scream it from the top of your lungs 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My brain anytime I think about Chicago: thebeanthebeanthebeanthebean art museum!! thebeanthebeanthebean
> 
> Sorry I'm like this. Anyway, look who finally wrote a chapter longer than like 1,000 words... and it's all about kissing! Wow!

The first time Pete kisses Pat is at a shitty dive bar.

They’ve been doing shows at the biggest venues Pete can find, which so far has amounted to tiny clubs that hold a max of maybe fifty people. Tonight, at least, the crowd seemed kind of into it. Pete spotted a whopping six (six!) people wearing ratty homemade Fall Out Boy shirts and at least half of the people packed into the bar seemed to be into it. And only maybe half of that half was drunk out of their minds.

After the show, they stick around. Everyone’s sweaty and hot and high on endorphins as they mill around the bar and partake of the free beer. Andy sips almost demurely on some ice water that Pete is sure tastes like the tangy inside of a rusty pipe. Joe, ever the social butterfly, is dancing around in the crowd, trying to twirl other unsuspecting (and, often unamused) patrons.

Pete and Pat are just sitting at the bar, feet tucked under the rungs of the high chairs, elbows resting on the sticky, varnished counter. There’s another band playing by now, somehow simultaneously more and less pop punk than Pete thinks her own band will ever be. Someone in the band has brought lights for the stage, one of those Christmastime light show projector contraptions, and it’s lazily cycling through a rainbow of neon colors.

Through the silver haze coating the bar, Pat looks like something out of a movie. Her eyes are bright and reflecting the blue and green and pinkish hues of the lights and she looks, for once, grown up in a way that she never does. Pete’s always known Pat was special, the kind of lightning in a bottle most people never even catch once. But somehow, right now, this feels like the part in a film where the music swells and the audience leans forward in their seats. It’s a tipping point. Something’s about to happen. Pay attention, Pete thinks to herself.

“…And I didn’t even realize she was asking me to come with her until it was already too – Hey!”

Lost in her own head, Pete hadn’t even realized Pat was still talking to her. Abruptly, she snaps back into her skin. The music becomes a little louder, the lights a little brighter. Pete tips her head back and forth, shaking some invisible water out of her ears.

“Were you even listening to me?” asks Pat.

“I was. No really, I was!” says Pete. “I just zoned out there for a second. You were talking about some hookup?”

Pat huffs. “Some almost hookup,” she says. “If you had been paying attention, you would know that I didn’t even know I was being propositioned until she left with someone else.”

Pete’s brain gets a little stuck on the “she” in that sentence, the casual way it falls from Pat’s lips. She didn’t know… oh, sure, she hoped. But she didn’t know until right this very moment. “Oh,” she says. “That fucking sucks.”

“I’ll drink to that,” says Pat, taking a swig of her beer.

“So are you going to try again tonight?” asks Pete. She’s going to try to play the supportive friend here, she really is.

Pat laughs. “Pete, I’ve literally never picked anyone up in my life. I’ve never been picked up. You of all people should know that.”

She didn’t. “But what’s stopping you?”

“Well, for one, I’m me.” Pat gestures broadly to herself. “And I look like this and I’m really not good at conversation and I sweat too much and I’m kind of… just… generally awkward.”

“Okay, well let’s pretend for a moment that any of what you just said was true and an actually valid reason to turn you down.” Pat makes a noise like she’s going to try to interrupt and Pete shushes her with a wave of her hand. “Uh uh uh. If that were the case, I ask again – what’s stopping you?”

Pat starts to get that pinkish look to her face that means she’s embarrassed about something. “I’ve never even, like,” she drums her fingers on the bar top, sighs. “Kissed anyone,” she finally finishes.

Oh.

“Oh,” says Pete, trying for all the world to not sound too surprised. “Well that’s easily fixed,” she says. And oh, no no no, Pete what in the ever-loving fuck are you doing?!

Pete reaches her hands out, slow so as not to startle Pat, and cups her chin between her palms. And then she just… well, she kisses Pat. It’s close-mouthed, gentle, shorter than Pete would ideally wish. But she’s being a good friend here, not a bad, likes-to-lust-over-her-bff kind of friend. She tries not to think about how it feels, how Pat smells up this close, how warm her face is against Pete’s hands and lips and nose. But deep in the lizard part of her brain, she has to admit that it feels good.

She pulls back, hands still clasped to Pat’s cheeks but far enough away to see the shock still filtering out of Pete’s eyes. “There,” she says. “Now there’s nothing to worry about.”

Pat shakes herself off, laughs a little. “Wow, thanks so much,” she says.

-

The first time Pete kisses Pat for real, they’re in a hotel room.

It’s a Holiday Inn, far and away preferable to the shitty motels they’ve been crashing at most nights on this tour. Pete and Pat are rooming together and Andy and Joe have a room down the hall. The room has a tiny kitchenette and an even tinier living room area, and two queen beds. Normally, Pete would be a little sad about not getting to share a mattress with Pat, but tonight she’s just elated at the thought of getting to spread out like a starfish on her own bed for once.

Pete loves these hotel nights. She’s been looking forward to them all tour, knows that because they’re just kind of-sort of a bigger band now they get luxuries like regular showers and free continental breakfasts. And she knows that a hotel night means she gets to have a room with Pat all to herself. The band has always broken down the middle like this, PeteandPat and JoeandAndy, a nice clean fracture that they’ve never had to question. Mostly – and Pete feels extra slimy for even letting herself have these kinds of thoughts – all she wants out of a hotel night is to sleep (or not) on a nice, soft bed and listen to Pat breathe from five feet away. There’s something so intimate about it, even though they’re not touching, something so comfortable and homey about sharing a space. About being their own little planets, orbiting each other for eight to ten blissful hours.

Currently, Pat is sitting on the stiff little couch that serves as the centerpiece of their living room, feet kicked up on an even smaller, stiffer ottoman covered in the same hideous orangey-beigey polyester as the couch. Pete wonders, Who designs hotel rooms? Is there just some company out there, some CEO whose job it is to okay hotel sofa colors and patterns?

Pete plops down beside Pat, mug of tap water from the kitchen sloshing in her grasp. “Anything look good?” she asks.

Pat adjusts her glasses on her nose. “Nothing you don’t have to pay for,” she says. “It’s either the local weather channel or reality TV tonight.”

“Is that even a question?” asks Pete. “Reality TV all the way, babe!”

“You’re right,” Pat says, shaking her head. “How could I be so foolish?”

They laugh at each other a little, comfortable with one another in the way they always are. They’ve known each other long enough, lived in each other’s pockets for enough years, that Pete gets the distinct feeling sometimes that Pat is her soulmate. 

Pete has a lot of thoughts about soulmates. About other halves and destiny and fate. Before she met Pat, she would have said the whole idea of having someone else out there in the world who was meant for you was complete bullshit. Before she met Pat, she would have said a lot of things. Time and distance has convinced her that they would all be wrong.

And so it goes. The closer they get, the more Pete falls in like, then like-like, then love with Pat. It’s a slow, tortuous process, and she wouldn’t wish it on her first enemy. And yet. 

Pat rests her head on Pete’s shoulder as they watch some heavily-makeuped woman yell at her cheating husband about something-or-other on the little flat screen in the corner of the room. Pete doesn’t know when Pat started leaning on her; she didn’t even feel it until just now, but now it’s all she can think about. All she can focus on.

There have been a handful of moments in Pete’s life where she was hit with a sudden burst of clarity. A premonition, of sorts. An absolute _knowledge_ that something monumental was about to happen. Seeing Pat for the first time, hideous argyle-and-knee-socks and all, that was one. Performing at one of their first shows, screaming out to the crowd and hearing them shout back, that was another. Getting the call from the record label, listening to a suit introduce himself and thinking _oh, shit_ , that was another.

Right now, Pat’s head on her shoulder, Pat’s thigh tucked snug against her, heat bleeding through layers of denim… this is one, too.

Pat lifts her head off Pete’s shoulder, scratches at her nose. She shifts, turns, settles back in a new position, body turned sideways on the couch. She’s perpendicular to Pete now, cheek resting on the back of the couch. Pete mirrors her movements, faces Pat with her own cheek smashed into the scratchy fabric of the couch.

It’s a _moment_. They stare at each other, just soft and watchful. They are so, so close. Pete can almost count the blood vessels at the corners of Pat’s eyes, can see the way her skin stretches across her bones and forms the lines of the face Pete is so enamored with. Pete can feel her gaze shifting, eyes trying to look at Pat’s mouth and eyes and barely noticeable freckles all at the same time. Pat’s gaze doesn’t wander. She barely blinks, just looks right into Pete’s eyes like they’re all she needs to see.

Pete couldn’t say who moves first, or whether they move at all. All she knows is one moment they’re watching each other, and the next they’re bumping lips and noses and Pat’s hand is sliding up and curling around Pete’s ear, her throat, the base of her skull.

They come together and break apart like waves, taking little sips of air before coming back together, soft, soft, and kissing like they’re saying hello. It’s warm and sweet and Pat doesn’t taste like anything but herself when Pete opens her mouth a little and tongues at Pat’s bottom lip.

Eventually, they pull away from each other, enough to really breathe. Pete’s heart is so full it’s overflowing. Her brainwaves are so still and clear, you could skip stones on them. “I love you,” she says, not caring if it’s too soon or too sudden or too anything. It’s real and true and she doesn’t care. “I think you’re my soulmate.”

Pat just laughs, and the sound is beautiful.

-

Pete makes note of all their kisses, because it seems like an important thing to do. She has a little mental tally that starts with their first kiss in the hotel in Boston, but also sometimes with their _first_ first kiss in a bar in Milwaukee. After a while, Pete has to stop counting each individual time their lips touch and start only counting each occasion of kissing. This will be significant one day, she’s sure of it.

Number four happens after a show, Pete flushed feverish with post-concert adrenaline. She kisses Pat backstage, in the dark recesses of the hallways and broom closets of the venue..

Lucky number thirteen takes place at the carwash, where Pete is mesmerized by the pink-and-pastel foam that falls on her windows like clouds and the red-and-blue bristle brushes that beat the dirt and grime off her car. Where Pat starts to breathe a little more raggedly and turns a little pale and whispers, “I hate carwashes, ever since I was a kid. They just make me feel so small” when Pete asks her what’s wrong. Where Pete grabs her hand and pulls her in for a kiss, telling Pat to “Close your eyes, it’ll be less scary that way.”

By number thirty-six, Pete’s stomach still gets full of butterflies whenever she thinks about kissing Pat.

By number forty-three, the butterflies stop. They are replaced by something deep and warm and blooming.

Pete and Pat have one thousand nine hundred and thirty four kisses before Pete brings everything crashing down. It seems unfair that they were so close to two thousand. Given a few weeks, Pete would have surpassed that number. Days, even, if she really put her mind to it. She loves Pat so much, so hard. But it doesn’t matter. Pete ruined everything regardless.

-

Pete tries so hard to apologize. She’s a proud person but for this – for Pat – she’s willing to put aside her pride to say she’s sorry. To beg for forgiveness, or something like that. But Pete’s never been good at the follow-through. Pete’s never been brave.

So Pat’s texts go unreplied to, though Pete types out paragraphs and paragraphs worth of responses before deleting them. Her phone calls go unanswered, though Pete rambles for hours into her voicemail box before thinking _Forget it_ and deleting the whole thing all over again.

She apologizes to Pat every night, whispers _I’m sorry_ s into the air to disappear like so much smoke into the air. She listens to Pat’s music on repeat, headphones pressed deep into her ear canals until it feels like she’s drowning when she pulls them back out. She memorizes Pat’s words, her guitar riffs, her very breaths that come quick and tinny through Pete’s phone speakers. Pete imagines the songs are for her, knows they’re not, wonders if they are anyway.

Pete buys tickets to Pat’s shows every time she’s within a two-hour radius of Pete. She stands in the back of tiny venues – bars and clubs and coffee shops – and watches Pat pour her heart out for the crowd. Watches Pat weave her hips in figure-eights as she dances, strange and electric, and remembers what it felt like to press kiss-shaped bruises into Pat’s thighs once upon a time. Listens to Pat growl and sneer and belt out runs that no human should be able to accomplish and remembers how Pat used to make those noises for her, just her, in bunks and beds and all the other quiet places.

Pete falls apart and builds herself back up, ragged like a Picasso painting, pieces missing here and there. She reforms friendships, apologies to Joe and Andy and all the other people she’s hurt. Tries to be more herself. Tries to live a better life, live like an adult for once. Makes music that doesn’t sound like her and doesn’t sound like Fall Out Boy and doesn’t even sound _good_ most of the time, but makes Pete feel happy for once.

Pete goes to Joe’s stupid Halloween party that she doesn’t realize is a trap, lays eyes on Pat for the first time in so, so long at such close range. Pete stays up until 2 a.m. getting to know Pat again, drinking Joe’s wine and lounging on her couch and talking to Pat. And it is so…

“Do you remember –?” Pat keeps saying, words coming out lopsided through her laughter.

“Okay, so have you heard about –?” asks Pete, before launching into a story.

They start again, start to text and talk and remember what it was like to be friends. To be something special and irreplaceable to one another. Pete doesn’t apologize, in so many words, but she tries her best to show Pat how sorry she is. Pete thinks about the bridges she’s burned and prays, _Light the way back home. Show me how to be better_.

-

The one thousand nine hundred and thirty-fifth time Pete kisses Pat goes a little something like this.

On February fourth, Pete and the girls get up bright and early to burn a stack of their old records and break the news to the rest of the world that they’re back. The plastic burns black and snakelike in the flames and Pete thinks about ashes and death and rebirth and phoenixes rising. They talk to a reporter there in the park, the fire against their backs doing nothing to cut through the icy Chicago morning.

It feels _so good_ to be back together like this, so good to spill the secrets that have been burning a hole in her chest for months. Pete’s been lying all throughout the hiatus-that-wasn’t-a-hiatus – to reporters, to fans, to anyone and everyone who will listen – and, frankly, it’s been exhausting. Just yesterday she was saying _No, we don’t have any plans to come back as a band right now_ (The _and maybe not ever_ was heavily implied) and now she’s gushing like an open wound about the songs they’ve been making and the tour they’re setting up and the videos she can already see in her mind’s eye. It’s exhilarating. 

And her best friends are right there with her, just as open and shining and excited as Pete is. Pat’s been coming out of her shell during the break. Pete knows this, but it’s entirely different to see it in person, to watch Pat answer questions without any sign of nerves.

Later, they head back to their conjoined hotel rooms, which make Pete feel like she’s twenty-something again and not a single mom in her thirties. They split up just like old times, right down the middle into JoeandAndy and PeteandPat. Two rooms with two beds each, and more complimentary hair products than any of them could ever need.

The show – and _god_ , how amazing it sounds to hear those words out of their mouths again – isn’t for a few hours yet, so Pete and Pat drop their suitcases on one of the beds and head out to get lost in Chicago.

“Just like old times,” says Pete.

“Uh, maybe for _you_ ,” says Pat. “Some of us don’t live in sunny LA year-round.”

“Like I could ever forget that refreshing lake effect breeze,” says Pete, tipping her head back and taking a big breath. 

“You think you’re funny,” says Pat. “You’re not.” But she’s laughing even as she says it.

It’s too cold to just wander around for three hours, so they mostly bum around on the streets near their hotel, meandering into and out of stores and coffee shops and art galleries. They even walk a few blocks to Millennium Park, like true tourists. Pete knows Pat loves the Bean for some strange reason, though she would never admit it, so she steers them in that direction as innocuously as she can.

For her own part, Pete has often imagined taking Pat to the Art Institute and kissing by that big painting made of tiny dots. Or in one of the rooms of Monets, she’s not picky.

Pete’s been trying not to think about kissing Pat anymore and (she’s proud to say), she’s been doing a pretty good job of it. But something about being here, in the city where it all started is making her nostalgic.

They stop walking once they get to the Bean, peering up at their distorted faces reflected back in its mirrored surface. Pat pokes at the cold metal with one fingertip. (Pete stoically refrains from a “flicking the bean” joke.)

“It’s cold,” she says.

“Well, no shit,” says Pete.

And then, just like that, they’re kissing.

Later, in retrospect, if she thinks about it really, really hard, Pete can just about remember the moments leading up to it. Like snapshots. Moments like snowflakes falling in fractals between them. 

Pat turns to her, finger still resting on the sculpture, and kisses her like conversation. Like it’s easy, even after all these years, to just _do_ it. Pete, for all her yearning, is struck dumb in wide-eyed wonder as Pat’s cold, chapped lips make contact with hers. She’s ice, frozen like the rest of the city today.

When Pat realizes she’s not kissing back, she jerks her head away (or tries to), mouth opening to say something that would probably sound a lot like _I’m sorry_. Pete never figures out what she was going to say, though. Because Pete gets her shit together and kisses Pat back before she can get too far out of range.

And it is like conversation. Like breathing, almost. They push and pull at each other like waves beating against the shore. Pete breathes out when Pat breathes in, lungs and hands and mouths working in tandem as they freeze to death out there in the open.

“God,” says Pat when they finally break apart. She’s pink all over, her cheeks, her lips, the tip of her nose.

“I know,” says Pete.

Then, “I love you.”

And, “I’m sorry.”

In just a few short hours, they will be bouncing on high-top-covered toes, waiting in the wings (so to speak) of the club, listening to the unbridled excitement of the fans just out of reach. They will look at each other, all four of them, and nod and high-five and wish each other good luck in whispers.

Then, like now, Pete will say, “I think we’re gonna make it.”

Then, like now, Pat will say, “I know we will.”

And so it begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this story this past month or so has been so, so surreal for me. Who knew the only catharsis you need in life is to write 20k words of rpf femslash!!
> 
> For real, though... I've had the time of my life dreaming up these little vignettes and getting them out of my brain and into the real world. There is so much of my own life woven through here, as well - pain and loneliness and friendship and strength. If you took the time to read any or all of this, I thank you for the bottom of my heart.
> 
> I can be found on tumblr @boxedblondes and @fobarthistory, if you want to come hang with me sometime.


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